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About 12 years ago,

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I gave up my career in banking

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to try to make the world a safer place.

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This involved a journey into
national and global advocacy

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and meeting some of the most
extraordinary people in the world.

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In the process, I became
a civil society diplomat.

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Civil society diplomats do three things:

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they voice the concern of the people,

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are not pinned down by national interests,

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and influence change

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through citizen networks,
not only state ones.

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And if you want to change the world,
we need more of them.

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But many people still ask,

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"Can civil society really
make a big difference?

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Can citizens influence and shape
national and global policy?"

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I never thought I would ask
myself these questions,

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but here I am to share some lessons

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about the powerful civil society 
movements that I've been involved in.

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They are in issues
that I'm passionate about:

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gun control and drug policy.

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And these are issues that matter here.

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Latin America is ground zero
for both of them.

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For example, Brazil:

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this beautiful country hosting TEDGlobal

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has the world's ugliest record.

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We are the number one champion
in homicidal violence.

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One in every 10 people
killed around the world

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is a Brazilian.

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This translates into over 56,000 people

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dying violently each year.

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Most of them are young, black boys
dying by guns.

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Brazil is also one of the world's
largest consumers of drugs,

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and the War on Drugs
has been especially painful here.

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Around 50 percent of the homicides
in the streets in Brazil

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are related to the War on Drugs.

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The same is true for about
25 percent of people in jail.

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And it's not just Brazil that is affected
by the twin problems of guns and drugs.

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Virtually every country and city across
Central and South America is in trouble.

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Latin America has nine percent
of the world's population,

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but 25 percent
of its global violent deaths.

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These are not problems
we can run away from.

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I certainly could not.

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So the first campaign I got involved
with started here in 2003

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to change Brazil's gun law

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and to create a program
to buy back weapons.

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In just a few years,

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we not only changed national legislation

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that made it much more difficult
for civilians to buy a gun,

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but we collected and destroyed
almost half a million weapons.

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This was one of the biggest
buyback programs in history,

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(Applause)

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but we also suffered some setbacks.

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We lost a referendum to ban
gun sales to civilians in 2005.

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The second initiative was also home-grown,

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but is today a global movement to reform
the international drug control regime.

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I am the executive coordinator
of something called

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The Global Commission on Drug Policy.

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The commission is a high-level group

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of global leaders brought together
to identify more humane

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and effective approaches
to the issue of drugs.

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Since we started in 2008,

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the taboo on drugs is broken.

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Across the Americas, from the west
in Mexico to Colombia and Uruguay,

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change is in the air.

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But rather than tell you the whole story
about these two movements,

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I just want to share with you
four key insights.

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I call them lessons to change the world.

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There are certainly many more,

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but these are the ones
that stand out to me.

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So the first lesson is,

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change and control the narrative.

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It may seem obvious,

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but a key ingredient
to civil society diplomacy

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is first changing and then
controlling the narrative.

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This is something that veteran
politicians understand,

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but that civil society groups
generally do not do very well.

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In the case of drug policy,

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our biggest success has been
to change the discussion

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away from prosecuting a War on Drugs

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to putting people's health
and safety first.

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In a cutting edge report
we just launched in New York,

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we also showed that the groups benefiting
most from this $320 billion market

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are criminal gangs and cartels.

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So in order to undermine
the power and profit of these groups,

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we need to change the conversation.

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We need to make illegal drugs legal.

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But before I get you too excited,

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I don't mean drugs
should be a free-for-all.

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What I'm talking about,

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and what the Global Commission 
advocates for

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is creating a highly regulated market,

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where different drugs would have
different degrees of regulation.

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As for gun control,
we were successful in changing,

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but not so much
in controlling the narrative.

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And this brings me to my next lesson:

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never underestimate your opponents.

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If you want to succeed
in changing the world,

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you need to know who you're up against.

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You need to learn their motivations
and points of view.

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In the case of gun control,

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we really underestimated our opponents.

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After a very successful
gun-collection program,

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we were elated.

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We had support from
80 percent of Brazilians,

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and thought that this could help us
win the referendum

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to ban gun sales to civilians.

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But we were dead wrong.

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During a televised 20-day public debate,

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our opponent used
our own arguments against us.

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We ended up losing the popular vote.

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It was really terrible.

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The National Rifle Association

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-- yes, the American NRA --

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came to Brazil.

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They inundated our campaign
with their propaganda,

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that as you know,
links the right to own guns

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to ideas of freedom and democracy.

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They simply threw everything at us.

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They used our national flag,

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our independence anthem.

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They invoked women's rights

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and misused images of Mandela,
Tiananmen Square, and even Hitler.

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They won by playing with people's fears.

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In fact, guns were almost completely
ignored in their campaign.

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Their focus was on individual rights.

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But I ask you:

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which right is more important,

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the right to life

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or the right to have a gun
that takes life away?

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(Applause)

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We thought people would vote
in defense of life,

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but in a country with a recent past
of military dictatorship,

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the anti-government message
of our opponents resonated,

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and we were not prepared to respond.

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Lesson learned:

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we've been more successful
in the case of drug policy.

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If you ask most people 10 years ago

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if an end to the War on Drugs was possible,

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they would have laughed.

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After all, there are huge
military police prisons

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and financial establishments
benefiting from this war.

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But today, the international drug
control regime is starting to crumble.

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Governments and civil societies
are experimenting with new approaches.

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The Global Commission on Drug Policy

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really knew its opposition,

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and rather than fighting them,

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our chair -- former Brazilian President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso --

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reached out to leaders
from across the political spectrum,

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from liberals to conservatives.

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This high level group agreed
to honestly discuss the merits and flaws

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of drug policies.

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It was this reasoned, informed
and strategic discussion

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that revealed the sad truth
about the War on Drugs.

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The War on Drugs has simply failed
across every metric.

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Drugs are cheaper
and more available than ever,

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and consumption has risen globally.

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But even worse,

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it also generated massive
negative unintended consequences.

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It is true that some people
have made these arguments before,

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but we've made a difference
by anticipating the arguments

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of our opponents

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and by leveraging powerful voices
that a few years ago,

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would probably have resisted change.

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Third lesson: use data
to drive your argument.

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Guns and drugs are emotive issues,

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and as we've painfully learned
in the gun referendum campaign in Brazil,

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sometimes it's impossible
to cut through the emotions

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and get to the facts.

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But this doesn't mean
that we shouldn't try.

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Until quite recently,
we simply didn't know

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how many Brazilians were killed by guns.

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Amazingly, it was a local soap opera
called Mulheres Apaixonadas

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-- or "Women in Love" --

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that kicked off Brazil's
national gun control campaign.

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In one highly-viewed episode,

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a soap opera lead actress
was killed by a stray bullet.

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Brazilian grannies
and housewives were outraged,

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and in a case of art imitating life,

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this episode also included footage
of a real gun control march

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that we had organized right here,


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outside in Copacabana Beach.

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The televised death and march
had a huge impact on public opinion.

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Within weeks, our national congress
approved the disarmament bill

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that had been languishing for years.

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We were then able to mobilize data

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to show the successful outcomes
of the change in the law

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and gun collection program.

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Here is what I mean:

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we could prove that in just one year,

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we saved more than 5,000 lives.

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(Applause)

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And in the case of drugs,

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in order to undermine this fear
and prejudice that surrounds the issue,

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we managed to gather and present data
that shows that these drug policies

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cause much more harm than drug use per se,

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and people are starting to get it.

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My fourth insight is,

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don't be afraid to bring
together odd bedfellows.

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What we've learned in Brazil

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-- though this doesn't only
apply to my country --

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is the importance of bringing diverse
and eclectic folks together.

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If you want to change the world,

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it helps to have a good procession
of society on your side.

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In both the case of guns and drugs,

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we brought together
a wonderful mix of people.

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We mobilized the elite

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and got huge support from the media.

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We gathered the victims,
human rights champions, cultural icons.

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We also assembled
the professional classes:

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doctors, lawyers, academia and more.

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What I've learned over the last years

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is that you need coalitions of the willing

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and of the unwilling to make change.

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In the case of drugs,

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we needed libertarians,
anti-prohibitionists, legalizers,

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and liberal politicians.

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They may not agree on everything:

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in fact, they disagree
on almost everything.

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But the legitimacy of the campaign

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is based on their diverse points of view.

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Over a decade ago,

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I had a comfortable future
working for an investment bank.

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I was as far removed from the world
of civil society diplomacy

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as you can imagine.

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But I took a chance.

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I changed course,

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and on the way, I helped to create
social movements that I believe

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have made some parts of the world safer.

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Each and every one of us

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has the power to change the world.

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No matter what the issue,

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and no matter how hard the fight,

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civil society is central
to the blueprint for change.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)